


sleep, pretty darling, do not cry

by goldheartedsky



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidental Death, Alternate Universe - Rise of the Guardians Fusion, Angst and Tragedy, Child Death, M/M, Protective Bucky Barnes, Sarah Rogers is the most patient mother ever, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve and Bucky are kids, There’s some weird stuff in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 16:03:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16601138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldheartedsky/pseuds/goldheartedsky
Summary: Darkness.That's the first thing I remembered.It was dark, it was cold, and I was scared. But then... then I saw The Moon. It was so big, and it was so bright. It seemed to chase the darkness away. And when it did... I wasn't scared anymore.When James is pulled from the bottom of a frozen pond by The Moon, he isn’t sure what he is there to do, or why he was saved. But when he sees Steve, he thinks he may have a second chance.





	sleep, pretty darling, do not cry

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of based off Rise of the Guardians, mainly The Moon saving Jack Frost and him saving his sister. Sadness ensues. Enjoy!

_Darkness._

_That's the first thing I remembered._

_It was dark, it was cold, and I was scared. But then... then I saw The Moon. It was so big, and it was so bright. It seemed to chase the darkness away. And when it did... I wasn't scared anymore._

_Why I was there and what I was meant to do, that I didn’t know, and a part of me wonders if I ever will._

_My name was James. How did I know that?_

_The Moon told me so. But that was all he ever told me._

The Moon set him down on the ice in the middle of the lake. There were lights in the distance and hole in the ice began to freeze over. James stared up at The Moon and stars in the dark sky and sucked a breath deep into his lungs like it hadn’t been there in hours.

“Where am I?” he whispered.

He looked up at The Moon but The Moon didn’t answer him. Taking a cautious step out onto the frozen water, James swallowed thickly when his boot didn’t crunch into the snow. He took another step, waiting for a crack that must have sent him to the bottom of the lake, but there was no footprint when he looked behind him.

Was he even really _here?_

He caught his reflection in the ice and shook at how young he looked. He couldn’t be more than twelve years old. What had happened to him?

The snow began to fall again as he stumbled to the shore. His bare arms felt the cold and James wasn’t quite sure where his jacket had gone to. It was winter. He should’ve have a coat.

James looked around the cold, deserted shore and shouted, “Hello? Can anyone hear me?”

He ran through the park until he saw a crowd of men standing around an open building. There was a sour smell in the air and a loud sound of laughter. James ran full sprint at them, shouting, “Please! I need help! I need-”

He tripped on a loose cobblestone and tried to grab one of the men’s arms, but found himself flat on his face. He scrambled up to find himself halfway inside the bar, staring at the group of men’s backs.

Rushing out to grab them, James watched his hand go straight through their bodies. A broken gasp punched its way out of his chest as he stared at his hands. “What happened to me?” he sobbed, wrapping his shivering arms around himself.

James sat on the frozen shore and stared up at the shining Moon above him. “Why am I here? Why did you save me?”

He tried to think back to a time before he saw The Moon through the water, before he was floating in the air, before The Moon whispered, _“Your name is James.”_

“Why did you bring me here!” he screamed into the cold night air. “I didn’t ask to be saved! You should’ve let me drown!”

The Moon disappeared behind a cloud and James let out a bitter scoff. There are hurried steps behind him and the sound of a boy crying. “Ma! Hurry!” the boy sobbed. “Bucky needs help!”

“He can swim, dear, I’m sure he’s made it to shore,” a woman said anxiously as James turned around. The boy had a wash of blond hair spreading out from underneath his knit hat, the woman sporting matching curls under hers. They were about the same height but the boy was younger than her by a good twenty years. “I’m sure James is fine.”

His heart nearly stopped at his name. He hurried to his feet as the boy and his mother stepped carefully out onto the ice.

_He_ was James. They _knew_ him.

“Wait!” James pleaded as he flew over to the boy. “What happened to me? Who are you? Why do you know me!” He grabbed at the boy’s arm but his fingers slipped through the blond’s coat like smoke.

The ice cracked as the boy and his mother got within a foot of the hole in the ice that James had disappeared into. She grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back a foot. “Stay back, Steve. The ice won’t hold us both.”

The boy -Steve, James reminded himself- hiccuped through another sob and wailed, “Ma, you have to get him out!”

James knelt down next to the woman as she dropped to her knees by the open water. She looked down into the dark, still water for what seemed like an eternity before she covered her mouth to muffle a quiet sob.

“Ma?” the boy cried as The Moon peeked his face out from the cloud. “Ma! Where’s Bucky?”

She crawled away from the hole in the ice on her knees and grabbed her son, pulling him down to her chest. “I’m so sorry, Steve. I couldn’t see James. He’s gone, sweetheart,” she murmured, her voice thick with grief. Steve screamed and tried to pull away from his mother, pounding his small fists against her chest. “I’m so sorry, darling. I’m so sorry.”

The boy finally broke free and shoved his mother away. “You took too long!” Steve shouted, standing over her as tears streamed down his face. “You didn’t need your hat or your coat to look nice when I came back home. You aren’t sick like me! Bucky’s dead because of you!”

“Steven...”

A harsh sob tumbled out of the boy’s mouth as his face crumpled in anguish. “What am I going to tell his mom?”

His mother carefully rose to her feet and wrapped her arms around her son. “We’ll tell her the truth. That James died protecting you. He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”

Steve wiped his eyes with a shaking hand and nodded, biting his lip to keep from crying. “I miss Bucky so much, Ma.”

She kissed the top of his head and murmured, “I know, dear. I know.”

James stood far too close to them as he studied the other boy’s face. Steve seemed so familiar but so foreign. Like he knew the boy in another life, or before his death. “Steve?” James whispered, his fingers hovering over the blond’s cheek. “Steve, what happened to me?”

“Come on, Steve. We need to go talk to the Barnes family before it gets too late. The girls should be asleep by now at least, le cúnamh Dé.”

James let out a harsh gasp as they walked right through him, heading for shore and the exit to the park. “Wait!” he called, hurrying to catch up with them. “Wait, I’m right here! I’m not dead, I’m right behind you!” But the boy and his mother didn’t look back or stop for him, just continued like he didn’t exist.

“I just wanted to go ice skating,” Steve muttered sadly as his mother wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “I didn’t know the ice was so thin.” James caught up with them and watched a tear drop down the boy’s chin. “It started cracking.”

“It’s not your fault,” the woman said, pulling him tight against her side. “You couldn’t have known.”

“Bucky took his skates off and told me it was okay. That he would push me back. I couldn’t move; I was too scared,” Steve sniffs, wiping his tears away. “Bucky knew I couldn’t swim. He pushed me and the ice broke underneath him.”

The boy suddenly let out a terrible sob and bent over, his arms wrapped around his stomach. He dropped to his knees and his mother went down next to him. “It’s okay, Steve,” she hummed.

“No it’s n-not!” the young boy blubbered as James bent down in front of him. He looked up at his mother and sobbed, “He t-told me he loved me, Ma.” Steve buried his face in her shoulder. “I think I loved him too.”

“I loved you?” James asked, his hand resting on Steve’s shoulder. “I died protecting you?”

The blond boy’s sobs shook his body, his breath coming in a heavy wheeze. He pulled away from his mother, holding his chest. “Ma...” he rattled. “My... asthma... need... Bucky...”

“Come on, we need to stop at home for your nebulizer before we go to talk to George and Winifred,” the woman said and the name ‘Sarah’ floated through James’s mind. She helped her son to her feet and muttered to herself, “As if this night couldn’t get any worse.”

Steve walked slowly due to the asthma but his mother tried to hurry him along as quickly as possible. James followed behind, his mind struggling to piece together his story. His name was James, The Moon told him that, but the boy called him Bucky. The Moon had pulled him from the pond but he had fallen in in an effort to save Steve. And he had loved him.

They get two blocks out of the park when James heard a soft clink in an alleyway. Steve and his mother didn’t seem to hear it but he certainly did. He turned around to see a man duck out of the alley, a small pistol at his side.

“Steve! Sarah! Look out!” he shouted as he tried to block them from the man with the gun. He could do absolutely nothing.

“Give me your purse, bitch,” the man said, grabbing Sarah from behind and pressing the gun against her temple. “Your money, your pretty ring.”

Steve immediately grabbed the man’s arm, wheezing, “Leave my Ma alone!” James never felt more unbearably useless in his life.

“Steve, run!” his mother shouts, struggling against the man. “Let me go! I don’t have a purse or money! Just let us go!” Steve wrapped his hand around hers and pulled, only to have the man shove him back onto the sidewalk. “Steve, _run!_ ; the woman repeated desperately. “ _Go!_ ;

Sarah landed a heavy stomp on the man’s foot, the boot of her heel digging into the tender bones. “God damn it!” the man shouted as he wrenched her away from his chest and swung the pistol across her skull.

James tried to catch her as she fell, but Sarah slipped through his fingers and onto the ground with a sickening crack.

“Stupid broad,” the man spat.

Steve swung a fist out at the man, catching him across the jaw. “You’ll pay for hurting my Ma!” the boy rasped, breathing heavily as he held up his fists. “My best friend already died tonight and you’re not taking her too!”

He felt the blood race to his stomach as he looked at the younger boy. “Steve, please,” James begged, tears forming in his eyes. “I can’t save you again.”

The man leveled the pistol at Steve and said, “Your funeral, kid.”

_Darkness._

_That’s the first thing he remembered._

James didn’t know how he ended up in front of Steve, his hand back against the blond’s chest, but he felt the bullet hit square on his diaphragm and the warm trickle of blood down his shirt.

He touched the wound in his stomach and stared at the bright crimson blood staining his fingertips. He was here. He was actually here. Turning around to look at Steve, James gave him a weak smile before his vision blurred.

“Wha... Bucky?!”

The Moon smiled down on him as he found himself staring up at the night sky. This is what he was brought back to do.

James listened to the man let out a terrified shout and disappear into the dark night as Steve’s face comes into focus above him. He felt the younger boy’s hands on his face and his hair and his stomach as Steve sobbed, “B-Bucky, I d-don’t understand.”

Letting out a shallow breath, he touched the high rise of Steve’s cheekbones as years of memories flooded back into his mind.

He saw Steve’s smile that had kept him going through the years, the soft curves of his mother’s face, the laughter of his sisters and brother, the soft Gaelic singing from Sarah’s kitchen. He had a family. He had a life before this. And it all revolved around Steve.

“The Moon...” James said quietly, feeling terribly cold all of a sudden. “Moon saved... me... to save you...” He twisted his fingers in the curl of hair at the back of Steve’s neck and felt a sudden calm wash over his body. “‘m sorry, Steve...” he rattled, tears slipping down his cheeks. “I wanna stay... with you...”

Steve bent over and kissed his forehead, his unsteady, labored breath washing over James’s face. “I love you, Bucky,” he wheezed through his sobs. “I wanted to tell you earlier but-”

_Darkness._

“....Bucky?”

_That’s the last thing he remembered._

“Bucky, _no_!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I love comments!


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